Brian Prentice

There is little use in pouring fuel on an raging fire. So I don’t want to add any more conjecture on what may or may not happen at today’s big Apple announcement. But in mulling over the potential of an actual breakthrough device I found myself reconsidering an old position of mine.

In Apple’s App Store Rejections – A Tempest in the Wrong Teacup I made the assertion that when it comes to attracting a developer community, addressable market size trumps the elegance of the platform. I maintain that position.

What I was wondering back then was whether Apple was about to repeat its mistakes of the late 1980s, early 1990s. Namely that it’s high-priced, albeit elegant operating system platform failed in creating an enticing enough market opportunity for the developer community. With Android, Google has begun flooding the market with a free, open source operating system that is an incredible draw for the handset manufactures. Should the market ultimately switch from being one of function-specific devices (i.e. music or phones) that support mobile applications to devices valued mostly for their access to a broad range of mobile applications than this manufacturer-focused strategy of Google could push Apple back into a niche categorization.

To a large extent I saw Google using Microsoft’s strategy of twenty years ago by providing a low-cost, manufacturer-agnostic operating system. But this time the battle lines were being drawn around open source.

In retrospect I think I had some critical flaws in my logic. The key problem was not taking into account the enormous differences between the nature of computing and the computing market now and  twenty years ago.

Let’s start with the price issue. Twenty years ago, the computer most of us had was probably at work, bought and maintained by our employer. Then, as is now, a $1000 price difference adds up when you are buying thousands of machines across the organization. Microsoft’s low-cost strategy played to that reality. The same economics hold true for the handset manufacturers. Saving a couple of bucks per device by using Android over Windows Mobile (or an operating system you have to build and maintain yourself) adds up to a lot of money. Google is playing to that reality.

But employers are exerting increasingly less influence over mobile devices. So then, to what extent do consumers actually care about the price differences between mobile computing devices? I’m not saying price doesn’t matter. I’m suggesting that when you look at this over a single device purchase it probably doesn’t matter nearly as much. Elegance, envelope-pushing design tied to a powerful brand seems to be the real factors in a consumer-driven mobile device market.

Therefore, the cost advantages that come from an open source mobile operating system are muted at the point of consumption. Furthermore, there is a broader question on whether open source lends itself well to envelope-pushing design or whether its better suited for reproducing existing computing concepts. If it’s the latter – and I’m inclined to believe it is – than things like Android will perpetually be in fast follower mode (that is unless someone can enforce a model of benign dictatorship in the ongoing development of the project – but that’s a separate discussion). That challenge is then spread across multiple handset manufacturers compounding the branding problems to each one.

The next big difference between now and the 80’s (besides the shoulder pads and Halston z-14) is platform extension. The Apple vs. Microsoft battle of twenty years ago was limited to the desktop. But the Apple vs. Google battle is not limited to the phone. You have to extend Apple’s addressable market opportunity for developers to include the iPod Touch. And, at some point, we’ll probably extend Google’s position to include Chrome OS devices..

This is where today’s announcement becomes interesting. If Apple is able to define a new device category – something with minimal to no overlap either with the Mac or the iPod/iPhone – they will be extending the scope of their proprietary platform. So again, the question about open source is whether it is suited to delivering category-crafting consumer solutions. I don’t think the evidence is there to support this conclusion.

But there is one other factor that I think could have even greater impact. Rather than focus strictly on the addressable market for developers what about the addressable market of developers.

OK, so I promised not to conjecture on what Apple could do with it’s big announcement. But harkening back to the 80s again what if Apple, either today or some point in the future, is able to resurface HyperCard. Not 1980’s HyperCard. But a new millennium iteration of it. Something that creates the same simple application construction and rich web metaphors but adds a gamut of social web capabilities. Something that leverages the simple AppleScript – a technology which has its heritage in HyperCard. Doing so would massively increase the number of people that can create mobile applications and, by extension, create a new market for the more traditional developers to create widgets and components for this new class of developer – all available at the iTunes Store.

If Apple can pull something like this off than there is the potential for them to bind an enormous new army of next-generation consumer-developers to their proprietary platform. And that would be an outcome advocates of open source should ponder over long and hard.

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